New device aims to keep organs fresh for transplant

Its advantages include portability and the length of time it keeps organs healthy

November 4, 2009|By Elizabeth Allen, San Antonio Express-News

SAN ANTONIO — While a sturdy ice chest isn't a bad way to ship a kidney, two scientists have built what they think is a preferred method for preserving human organs on their journey to a new body.

And a San Antonio-based company is confident enough in the new technology to license it for manufacture.

The organ preservation device, developed at the University of Texas Health Science Center, uses a small tank to infuse oxygen into a heart or kidney that's suspended in a solution, while removing carbon dioxide. It fits in a large briefcase.

It took more than a decade and all manner of materials to make a device that worked.

The new device's advantages are its portability and the length of time it keeps organs healthy, said co-inventor Leon Bunegin, who is an associate professor of anesthesiology at the medical college.

The device is relatively simple, he added, and it will be cheaper than the existing technology and completely recyclable.

"All the others rely on pumps, motors, batteries, ice to actually profuse and cool," he said. "This device uses no electricity whatsoever. It essentially has no moving parts."

Instead, he said, it uses the energy in the compressed oxygen to move the solution through the organ and to oxygenate the solution at the same time.

There's a market for better transfer of delicate human organs.

About 104,000 people are on the nationwide organ waiting list, while fewer than 17,000 transplant operations have been performed so far this year.

Of transplantable organs, kidneys are the hardiest with a transplant window of up to 24 hours. Hearts must be transplanted within four to six hours. The new device has kept an animal heart viable for up to 24 hours, Bunegin said. The inventors plan to design a larger version to accommodate livers and lungs.

Even for the resilient kidney, there's plenty of opportunity for such a device, said Dr. Juan Palmer, transplant surgeon at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in San Antonio.

About 70 percent of people waiting for organs need kidneys, but only about 15,000 are available each year, he said. The wait for kidneys can run up to seven years.

"Every year, a significant amount of patients get added to the list and unfortunately removed from the list, because they die waiting for organs," he said.

The founders of MCD Life Sciences had an eye on the kidney market when they settled on the device, also invented by Jerry Gelineau, a research scientist at the medical school. The device still faces clinical trials with human organs.

"MCD Life Sciences was put together to bring this technology to the market," said company President Lisa Maier. "I discovered the technology during a visit to the South Texas Technology Management Center. We evaluated hundreds of technologies in the process."

South Texas Technology Management is a technology transfer office that serves four University of Texas institutions. Maier said she hopes to have the device on the market by 2011. The company also is seeking regulatory approval in Europe and South America.